


Children's Moon

by st_aurafina



Series: Sirius as Companion [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 08:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8049052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina
Summary: A wild beast stalks a farming community, the Doctor and Sirius run into some familiar faces, and the Doctor experiments with Transfiguration.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic references a past occasion of child abuse. There's also some violence of the animal attack kind. There's more detail in the end notes, for those who need it.

"You know," said the Doctor, scratching behind Sirius' ears. "I'd quite forgotten how nice it was to have a dog around the place." 

Sirius pushed against the Doctor's hand, but his ears were pricked forward towards the TARDIS door. They'd landed on Earth, somewhere with flat, green fields. The wind gusted against the open door, bringing olfactory promises that Sirius itched to explore. 

The Doctor's senses weren't quite as keen as a dog's, but even he could pick up a hint of what Sirius picked up: warrens full of rabbits, fields full of mud and a sharp, feral scent coming in from the forest. "All right," he said. "Off you go, then."

The ground was soft underfoot as Sirius sprang forward from the TARDIS, out of the trees, legs long and loping across the grassy flat. 

The Doctor followed behind. "Don't go too far! I'm not entirely sure this is the nineties." He turned a full circle with his head thrown back. "It feels a bit early. No radio waves. Then again, we may just be in a dip." 

Sirius barked in mad delight as a rabbit crossed his path in a panic. Then he was gone, lost in a gleeful zig-zag over the field at the rabbit's heels. He almost had it; his mouth was open and watering, then a loud boom cracked the air and a hail of stinging pellets thudded into his hind leg. He yelped and rolled, then pressed his body flat against the ground. 

"Oy!" The Doctor bellowed in outrage as he ran over the rough ground towards the man peering down the barrels of a gun. "You've only gone and shot my dog!" 

"Don't you move!" the man bellowed, still keeping his sight on the Doctor. "What are you doing on my land? I'll bloody shoot you too, as well as your dog." He was a sturdy man in a well-mended tweed jacket, with leather boots and a well-kept rifle at his shoulder. 

"Ah, dear," said the Doctor, raising his hands. "Look, I've got papers. You all right if I get them out?" 

The man nodded briefly, and the Doctor slowly drew out the psychic paper. He held it up for the man. 

"I can't bloody see that from here." The man kept the rifle butt at his shoulder and walked closer to peer at the open wallet. "What's the Ministry of Defence doing in Pickering?" 

"Oh, we're in Yorkshire!" said the Doctor, under his breath. "Well, sir - may I call you sir? - the reason the Ministry of Defence has sent me here to Pickering is because we're considering installing a satellite." 

The man watched him with a dubious expression. "And what's that when it's at home, then?" 

"Can't tell you, I'm afraid," said the Doctor. "National security and all that." He watched Sirius, valiantly creeping up on the man with a determined dot and carry. "Listen, I'm not a threat, so do you mind if I look after my dog?" He pointed at Sirius, creeping low over the heather. Sirius stopped moving and gave him a baleful look. 

The farmer took in the injured dog, and lowered the rifle. "All right, but you ought to be more careful, letting him run free over someone else's land. I've lost stock. I'm not taking any chances with dangerous looking dogs." 

The Doctor bobbed down to pull at Sirius' ears and looked at the wound on his flank. "Poor old man, who's a poor old man, got shot in the leg, did he? We'll fix that up, we will." 

Sirius tilted his head in amazement at this stream of idiotic babble, and the Doctor cleared his throat, embarrassed. 

"He's a smart looking beast," said the farmer, approvingly. "Got a bit of mastiff in him, I'll wager." 

"Ooh, very likely," said the Doctor. "Can you, ah, help us into town? We obviously got lost on our ramble, Sirius and I. I imagine you've got a vet or someone who can see to my dog." 

The man nodded. "I'll bring the motor across." 

The Doctor grinned, triumphant. "See, Sirius? Combustion engines narrow the time bracket down considerably. Can't be earlier than the twentieth century, surely." He picked Sirius up, with some effort, and carried him up the hill. "Perhaps next time, you would consider a smaller dog? I'm not as young as I once was." 

The farmer's name was Willoughby, and his car was a 1910 Rolls Royce shooting-brake, to which the Doctor gave a gleeful chuckle. Sirius draped himself across the Doctor's lap, and sighed, while the Doctor pressed a handkerchief to the wound. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but the pellets stung, and Sirius itched to get his teeth into the wound and worry them out. 

"Did you say you've been losing stock? To what?" The Doctor had to shout to be heard above the roar of the engine and the rattle of the chassis. 

"No idea!" Willoughby bellowed over his shoulder. "Something feral, something that kills more than it can eat. Wild dog, as best as we can tell, but there's some old-timers who want to say it's a wolf. Any excuse to bring up stories of the black beast."

Sirius cocked his ears at the word 'wolf', and the Doctor stroked his head. "Picked up something out there? Wolf spoor?" he said, softly.

Sirius made the best possible shrug a dog's anatomy would allow, then rested his chin on the Doctor's leg. Whatever he'd crossed on the field, it was something that brought up his hackles and made his lips curl and his body tense, so that the wound in his leg tugged and pulled. 

The Doctor pulled gently at his ears. "Don't worry, old boy. We'll be at the vet's soon." 

"Now," said Willougby. "I don't want you to be shocked, or any such thing, but our veterinary, well, she's a lady. Perfectly competent, though, I assure you." 

The Doctor grinned. "A lady, you say? Well, that's very forward thinking of your community. Admirable, even." He ruffled Sirius' ears, and Sirius leaned into the caress. This time, it was the Doctor who sighed. "Good dog," he said, softly. 

Willoughby made a non-committal noise. "I wasn't so sure of the woman, myself, but she's every bit able to do the job. Even pulls the calves, when it's needed, and that's no small task. I would go so far as to say that she's as good as a man." 

"Fancy that," said the Doctor. 

Sirius did not like the veterinary surgery at all, and tried his best to convince the Doctor not to go in, but somehow he ended up on the shiny bench, while the Doctor perused the bottles in the glass-doored cabinets. 

"No later than 1920," he said to Sirius, pointing out ether and sulphur and paraffin, apparently unaware that all of these things could be applied to Sirius in his current state. Then he glimpsed the printed calendar on the wall, marked with lambing season and other agricultural dates, and his finger jabbed at it, triumphant: it said April, 1913. 

Doctor Headley was a surprisingly petite silver-haired woman, and she took Sirius by the scruff of his neck with a firm grip while she shook something vigorously. Sirius craned his neck to see what she held, realised it was a thermometer and yelped in outrage, scrambling to escape. 

"Hold on there, old boy," she said, heartily. "This will only take a moment." In panic, Sirius let go of the transformation, and he felt himself begin to blur back to human. 

The Doctor reached hastily for the thermometer. "Ah, no need for that. He's been shot, he doesn't have the flu." 

"Don't be absurd," said Doctor Headley. "If I'm to treat the dog, I'm bally well going to treat him properly." She held out her hand for the thermometer, with a no-nonsense expression. 

Sirius looked up at the Doctor with imploring eyes. The Doctor took pity on him, and fetched out his sonic screwdriver. 

"What's that, then?" asked the vet, suspiciously. 

The Doctor waved it over Sirius, and it glowed blue. "Well, it's a lot of things, but right now it's a thermal register, and it's telling me that my dog has a core body temperature of 101 F." He tucked away the screwdriver before Doctor Headley could ask any more questions. 

While the vet picked pellets out of Sirius' side with forceps, the Doctor held a kidney dish for her, and quizzed her on what was killing farmers' sheep. 

"Well, you can't say with the countryside." She leaned over Sirius' body and delicately lifted a pellet from the wound. "I'm not superstitious, mind you, but there's a lot of land, and we know precious little about it. Could be anything out there. But it's most likely a feral dog - I've seen some smart enough to steal bait from a trap." She reached for the last pellet, and dropped it into the dish with a clink. "The thing that worries me is what happens when they cut off the supply of sheep. Whatever it is will come looking for dinner in other places, and I'm not talking about the hen house."

Sirius whined softly on the table, and the Doctor ruffled his ears with affection. "Sounds interesting, does it, Sirius? I think we arrived just in time. Doctor Headley, can you point me and my esteemed… dog at the local establishment?" 

The pub was the Red Lion Inn, which Sirius felt was nicely fortuitous. Once they had a room, Sirius shifted to human and peeled the awkwardly placed bandage from his backside to examine his buttocks in the mirror. 

"Ooh, that looks nasty," said the Doctor, balancing a tray on his knee. "Fancy a pork pie? They're very good." 

Sirius gently probed the wound; it was shallower in his human form, but broader. "Bloody hell, that stings."

"Where do your clothes go, when you do that?" the Doctor twirled his finger. 

Sirius snatched the pork pie from him and bit into it; he was starving after all the mess and fuss of being shot. "I've never thought about it; they're just there. Part of the spell, I suppose. Are we going to stay here? I suppose I'll have to stay as Padfoot." 

"Padfoot!" the Doctor exclaimed. "How Blyton-esque, I love it!" His face sobered. "Yes, I think we should stay and find out what's happening in the forest. I have a feeling." He nodded towards the window, where the sky was darkening. "Don't you sense it? Something out there, something with eyes." 

Sirius chewed meditatively as he looked out the window. "Doctor, most things in the forest have eyes."

"Ah, but most of them aren't looking at us right now, are they?" 

There was a brisk rapping at the door, and they both jumped. 

"Who is it?" the Doctor ventured. He gestured for Sirius to stand away from the door. Sirius looked down at the gap between door and floor: a man with boots stood in the doorway. 

"Sorry for the interruption," said a voice with an American accent. "Ramsay the barkeep mentioned you were from the Ministry of Defence." 

"And?" The Doctor frowned. Sirius shrugged; the only Ministry he knew anything about was the Ministry for Magic, and he doubted that had any relevance here. 

"I'm a civil servant, too. I'm wondering what your interest is in this matter." The man tried the handle of the door, but Sirius whipped out his wand in time. " _Colloportus!_ " he whispered, and the bolt slid home. 

"Look," said the man. "I don't really care what you and your dog are doing in there - it's a free country and I'm an open-minded kind of guy. But I'll give you your space. I'm going to slide my credentials under the door. Bring them down to me, I'll be in the taproom until closing." His boots sounded down the hallway, and Sirius heard him thumping down the stairs at a rapid pace. 

"He sounded odd," said Sirius. He picked up the leather wallet. 

"Yes," said the Doctor, in a long drawn-out syllable. "That was definitely not Edwardian-era vernacular." 

Sirius flipped the wallet open; he didn't recognise the name. A waft of cologne, gunpowder and sex drifted up from the leather. He's from something called Torchwood." 

The Doctor leapt from the bed, and the dinner tray clattered to the ground. He snatched the wallet from Sirius' hands and stared at it, wild-eyed. "Oh, this is bad. This is very, very bad." 

"Why?" Sirius tidied up the dishes and stacked them on the plate. 

"I know him. We've met - we will meet - but not yet. Do you understand?" The Doctor paced wildly. "I wonder if we can go out the window? It's not that high. There's got to be spell for flying, surely. Turn us into beetles or something, we'll fly all the way to the TARDIS."

The Doctor did tend to go on and on at a running pace when he got an idea in his head; Sirius had found the best way to deal with this was to make him lay out the facts, one by one. It had given him a greater appreciation for the way that Remus had talked him and James out of some really deadly ideas at Hogwarts. 

"Right, you know him, in the future," Sirius said. He pushed the Doctor down into the chair, and closed the curtains before he decided to jump out of the window. "And that's why you can't meet him now." 

The Doctor tapped his fingers nervously. "We could shred the fabric of time and space." 

Sirius narrowed his eyes at the man. He had a good nose for melodrama. "That's not what you're really worried about, though, is it?" 

"Sirius, the fabric of time and space is really very important," the Doctor began, defensively. Then he gave up under Sirius' glare, and slumped in the chair. "He was a friend; I let him down. Quite substantially. It's something I'm not very proud of." 

Sirius gripped his shoulder. "We've all let friends down. You're just unlucky enough to able to meet them before the fact. Look, he's expecting to meet someone from the Ministry - but he won't recognise me. Why don't I go down and talk to him? I could see what he's found out about this beast everyone is talking about."

The Doctor chewed his lip. "He's expecting a man and a dog." 

Sirius held up his wand with a grin. " _That_ I can take care of."

A few minutes later, he looked down at the Doctor in confusion. "I don't understand. I got an O in transfiguration. Human to animal is my specialty." Sirius was very proud of his ability to distinguish between dog breeds. _Cú Faoil_ should have given him a nice, shaggy Irish Wolfhound, as similar to Padfoot as Sirius could imagine. 

The little black Scottie dog looked up at him with angry eyes like currants. He opened his mouth, presumably to tell Sirius off, but all that came out were ferocious yips. The dog strutted up and down on the wooden boards, barking in outrage. Sirius could understand the language of dogs, but this? He could barely catch a word of it, it was so strongly accented. 

"Human transfigurration? I'm nae human, you ballacks! Turrrn me back, rrrright away! I cannae fly the TARDIS like this! I cannae even reach the console!" 

"Ah, it will have to do," said Sirius. It was late, and people would hopefully be deep enough in their tankards not to notice that he was a completely different man with a completely different dog. He picked up the dog, tucked it under his arm, and headed down to the tap room.


	2. Chapter 2

Captain Jack Harkness, the name in the wallet, was easily identifiable from his wide grin and expensive looking and thoroughly anachronistic white teeth. He beamed widely at Sirius' approach and stood up, holding out his hand. 

"Sirius Black, Ministry of Defence." Sirius shook his hand firmly, passed him the leather wallet, then sat down. He put the dog on the floor, and it pranced up and down, protesting furiously. 

"You want a drink?" Jack raised his glass to the barman, and scowling, the man brought over another so Jack could slosh liquor into it from the bottle on the table. 

The dog snarled. "Ye'd best not get blootered talking to this one, Sirius. He'll 'ave yer trousers off in a second!" 

"Angry little guy, isn't he?" Jack gestured at the dog with his glass. 

Sirius sipped his whiskey. "You probably heard: the poor bugger got shot in the backside this afternoon. He's not at his best. What's Torchwood doing up here? I wouldn't have thought this was your kind of thing." 

Jack raised his eyebrows. "Why wouldn't it be? Strange disappearances, bloody carcasses, unidentified beasties: sounds exactly like a Torchwood case to me. If we're doing the interdepartmental dance, what do you have to offer me?"

Sirius pushed his glass across the table with his finger. "I think it's sentient, whatever it is." He itched for the chance to pick up the scent again, track it, kill it. He rubbed the nape of his neck where the hairs were raised. 

Jack was watching him curiously. "Sentient?" he said. "How do you measure that, exactly?"

"Instinct." Sirius swigged down his whiskey. "Mine are quite good, I assure you." 

The Doctor turned to face the door, bristling and growling, hackles raised. "I smell blood. Blood and fear."

Sirius pushed his chair back and stood, his hand hovered over his wand. 

"Something wrong?" Jack suddenly held a pistol, low and confident. 

The door burst open and a man burst in. The pub fell silent at the sight of him, shirtfront splashed bright red, and face horrified. 

"We need help at the veterinary!" 

The pub burst into activity. Someone thrust a towel at the man, and when his hands were clean, they followed it with a glass of whiskey. 

Jack and Sirius looked at each other. Sirius hastily slipped his wand into his pocket. "We'd better go and take a look," he said. "Before they move things. There might be evidence. Scent, that sort of thing." 

Jack nodded, and holstered his weapon. "You'd better bring the wee doggie along, he might be helpful. What do you call him?" 

Sirius looked down at the black Scottie while his mind reached for a name. "Come on, Dougal. We can investigate. Let's let people look after this man." Before they notice that I'm not the Doctor and you're not Padfoot, he added silently. 

The Doctor eyed him sourly. "I'll dougal you, laddie," he said in a low growl, but he followed Sirius out the door. 

The injured man was sprawled on the whitewashed step of the veterinary clinic, and there was blood everywhere. Doctor Headley knelt beside him, blood-stained towels wadded up against his body. People came and went in a hurry, bringing more towels, and the stretcher from the cricket club. An ambulance had been summoned, but was not expected in a hurry. Nobody paid any attention to Sirius or Jack; this was clearly a village matter and as such, handled by villagers. 

Sirius longed to transform; there must be scent galore here, all of which would be lost by the time the dew came. He nudged the Doctor with his toe. "Go and have a whuffle, see what you can find before everyone tramps all over everything." 

The Doctor didn't waste time complaining. He put his nose to the cobblestone road and inhaled deeply. His tail waved back and forth absently as he looked for a scent trail. 

Jack stepped over the dog and crouched beside the man for a moment, then returned to Sirius' side. "Definitely some kind of animal attack," he said, indicating the deeply gouged claw marks over the man's cheeks and eyes. 

Sirius looked at the man's face. "God, it's Willoughby!" 

Jack raised enquiring eyebrows. 

"We met him this afternoon," Sirius said. "He's the man that shot me… my dog."

A low growling sound came from the bushes beside the clinic, from which the Doctor's hindquarters protruded. 

"What have you got there, Dougal?" Jack reached into the bushes, and pulled out a piece of tatty blood-stained cloth. It had been a herringbone weave originally, and there was something oddly familiar to the cut of the garment. Jack shook it out, and found the collar. "Ah, there's a tag. Excellent - so pleased that people can finally buy off the rack. Makes solving crimes just a bit easier." 

Before Sirius could pretend that he didn't understand what Jack was talking about, Jack read the label aloud. "Madame Malkin's Robes for All Occasions" he said, in a wondering tone. "That's baroque. I wonder if they're a costumer? This is some kind of cape-type suit."

Sirius' stomach fell. That complicated matters. He needed to talk with the Doctor, but the Doctor was currently cocking his leg against a lamppost. 

Jack took his elbow, looking into his face with concern. "You okay, Sirius? It's not easy, looking at this kind of thing. I would understand if you wanted to head back to the pub." 

Sirius shook his head. "I'm all right. I think I might take Dougal for a bit of a walk, see if he can find anything else." He had to get clear of the Muggles, so he could talk this over with the Doctor. 

Jack nodded. "I'll get the local plod onto this. There's probably family to contact, too, though I imagine they've got that well in hand." He held the tattered wizard robes away from his body as he walked towards the pub, presumably to call the police station. 

"You, with me," Sirius snapped at the Doctor. He walked at a rapid pace across the common, with the dog trotting at his heels. When they were too far from anyone who could hear them, he crouched down, ostensibly to pat his dog. "We've got a problem, and it isn't to do with the time stream," he said. 

The Scottie dog pranced angrily. "Change me back, Sirius! I cannae stand being this close to the ground."

Sirius looked over his shoulder: Jack was nowhere to be seen, but Sirius had an instinct he was the kind of man who showed up just when you didn't want him to. 

He shook his head, and scruffed the dog's neck. "Can't take the chance, sorry." 

"Change me back or I'll bite y'baws off! I'm nae joking, man!!" The Doctor bared his teeth and snarled.

"No, listen. There's other magic users here," said Sirius. "We need to be very careful." 

The Doctor sat up on his hind legs and cocked an ear. "Other wizards? Can you nae check for that? A registry? Secret marks on walls, that sort of thing?" 

"There'll be people living here among the Muggles, there always are," said Sirius. "It's more a question of them letting me find them." 

"Well, send up your wee magic flare. I want to be bipedal again as soon as rrremotely possible." The Doctor rested his hairy chin on Sirius' knee. "I dinnae ken how this got so complicated." 

Sirius scratched behind the Doctor's ears in commiseration. 

The village square seemed the best place to start. Sirius circled the sign-post in the centre of the village: there were four options, for the four roads leading from the square. He brushed the flaking paint with his fingers, and felt the gentle hum of old, old magic underneath. 

The Doctor put his forepaws up on the wood to sniff it, then rapidly sneezed twice."Och, there's a photonic shield up there." 

"I've seen this before," said Sirius. He took out his wand. " _Revelio!_ " he whispered, under his breath, and a fifth sign appeared. Pickering Lower, the sign read, and when Sirius said the name out loud, a thin and winding path across the common became visible. 

"Right-o," said the Doctor and trotted gamely down the path with his tail high. 

Sirius was not prepared for the extent to which a wizarding village was going to make him ache for his past life. He knew this place, even though he'd never been to Pickering Lower, but the higgledy-piggeldy architecture, the pocket-sized post office cum mews, and the noticeboard plastered with tattered, faded signs advertising kittens (V. Large, V. Clever!), looking for someone to fill in on the local Quidditch team (Beaters esp. needed!) were all tremendously familiar, like Hogsmeade, like Godwin's Hollow. The tiny pub was overflowing tonight, and wizards and witches all spilled out in the village square on this warm night with their tankards of butterbeer. It was as familiar as anything he'd seen since travelling with the Doctor. There'd be a grocer, here, with the right kind of food and daily delivery of the Prophet. And maybe a public Floo, he thought, longingly. 

A round-faced, balding man noticed them coming down the path first, and nudged his neighbour, sloshing his butterbeer over the top of the tankard. Eventually all eyes were on him and the Doctor as they approached. Sirius was suddenly aware he was dressed as a Muggle, though a florid one, thanks to the Doctor's wardrobe. Still, he was fairly sure nobody would actually take him for a Muggle. 

Beside him, the Doctor stopped still, scenting the air. "We going to have a problem, Sirius? They look a nervy bunch." Sirius reached down to pick him up, and he protested. "Put me down! I may need tae defend myself!" 

Sirius put his hand on the Doctor's muzzle. "Hush, and we'll fit in just fine. I wouldn't be here if I weren't a wizard, now, would I? So keep quiet and don't give the game up." The Doctor bared his teeth, but thankfully, didn't speak again.

A contingent of men and women came to meet him just as the path expanded out into the village square. 

"Evening," a small woman with a wild brush of silver hair said. "You've come up from the Muggles. We don't get a lot of traffic coming that way." There was wariness in her voice, as well as a question. 

"I'm sorry to bother you," said Sirius. "There's been some kind of animal attack, and I thought it best to check that the beast didn't come this way. I found some robes, you see, torn and bloodstained." 

The news rippled through the village, and more people put down their beer to come and hear what Sirius had to say. 

"Someone best find Allaun," a woman said. "He said he had some trouble up near the border." 

"We knew there was something up," said the balding, round-faced man, the local healer, Mr Glew, while the barmaid ran to fetch this Allaun. "It's no Muggle beast, that's certain. You should see the trail of things leaving the forest. Anything with a bit of magic sense is packing up and leaving." 

Allaun Tittler was a skinny man, with tufted hair in his ears. He hurried to the gathering outside the pub. He looked around with a startled expression. 

"This man's from the Muggle end," said the woman, bossily. "He says there was an attack up there, and you said there'd been a bother at the edge of the forest. Allaun, there's been a man attacked! You didn't say anything about the Muggles being attacked!" 

The pub crowd murmured unhappily. Sirius didn't blame them; this could easily be seen as a breach of the Statute of Secrecy. 

The Doctor extended his nose to sniff at Allaun's elbow, and he sneezed. "I know that scent," he rumbled. "Where do I know that scent?" His body was rigid under Sirius' arm, his whiskers twitching furiously.

Allaun was horrified. "I don't know anything about a Muggle man being attacked! The damn thing rolled me over and over till I couldn't tell up from down. Don't even know what it is – all I can say is it's big. Big and grey and angry as all get out." 

"Were you hurt?" asked Sirius. "How did you get away from it in one piece?" From the look of the injuries on poor Willoughby, the creature was a ferocious thing, and there wasn't, as far as he could tell, a scratch on Allaun.

Allaun shuddered. "No, it didn't get me. Though if I hadn't managed to Apparate, I'd probably be in pieces myself. As it was, the beast took my cloak."

Sirius looked all around the village square, where men and women stood listening. Nobody seemed particularly surprised by Allaun's story. "What has been going on here?" he asked.

"It started when the ravens vanished," said Allaun. "Used to have our own flock of puffskeins, but something attacked the nest, and they've all scattered. And I know nobody likes'em but the pixies have been scarce. Between you and me, mate, it takes a lot to scare off a pixie." Allaun served as gamekeeper for the village, keeping the magical creatures of the forest safe from Muggles and Muggles from them.

"It does, indeed," said Sirius. "How long has this been going on?" 

The crowd looked at each other. "Couple of weeks?" Mr Glew offered. "No more than that. The night the puffskeins were attacked was the worse of it, and that was three weeks ago. I heard the Muggles lost a bunch of sheep that night. Things started leaving the forest ever since then." 

"We've been in to find it," said the woman, Alice Featherfort. "I'm up over the treeline every morning – animagus, you know – and I've not seen a thing. We don't want to bring the Ministry down, you see. Last thing we want is to see Pickering obliviated." 

The Doctor wriggled desperately under Sirius' arms, huffing and harrumphing, his legs thrashing in alarm. "It's all right, Dougal," he said, ruffling his ears. "Nobody wants to hurt the Muggles, it's going to be all right." 

"Right protective little fellow, isn't he?" said Alice. "Never seen a familiar quite like him before –wherever did you pick him up?" 

The Doctor finally managed to launch himself from under Sirius' arms, and landed on the ground with a hefty thud. Then he shook himself all over, and trotted down between the Post Office and the pub. 

"Sometimes I think it's more that he picked me up," said Sirius. He pointed at the narrow path which was muddy and grass-tufted. "What's he off after down there?" 

Allaun Tittler grimaced. "Listen mate, are you anything to do with the Ministry? Because as Alice says, we don't want trouble. Things have been peaceful here in Pickering Lower, and we'd rather it stayed that way." 

Sirius shook his head. "Gentlemen, ladies, I can promise that I'm very much nothing to do with the Ministry for Magic. However, there's a man in Pickering who does a very similar job in the Muggle government, and he's got as keen a nose as Dougal for trouble. I'd be very grateful if you would be frank with me, so I can help you keep things quiet." 

"That's the way to the Gribbock place," said Mr Glew. "They're not a bad lot, but they're – they struggle, you know? – and they've only just got their son home from Azkaban." 

"What?" said Sirius, faintly. There was a rushing sound in his ears. 

Allaun shook his head, mistaking Sirius' shock for dismay. "Fen's a good boy, it's nothing like that. Nothing distasteful, you get me? He just got talking to one of the Muggles, said a bit too much, and wham!" He brought his hand down into his open palm with a sudden clap, and Sirius flinched away, pale and dizzy. 

The man leaned in, so he could whisper in Sirius' ear. "They did him for violation of the Statute. I've been helping his parents out, trying to get the boy settled again. Ministry should have left him to us, you see; we take care of our own in Pickering Lower. There isn't any need for a boy that age to go to Azkaban. There's naught but bad things come from there." 

The words rolled over him slowly, much more slowly surely than Allaun had said them and with them came a wash of ice-cold terror. They were coming for him, he was sure, with long grey fingers and cold, saline breath. Sirius mumbled something in response, and left, stumbling then running along the muddy path for the dark of the forest ahead. Then he was running on four legs, strong and easy through the night, weaving between trees, ignoring the sting of the wound in his hind leg. He didn't stop, not until a small, scruffy black shape launched itself on him, yapping and barking and jumping at him bodily. He slowed to a trot, and then a stumbling walk, and then he folded up on the leaves under an old oak tree, panting and trembling. 

The Doctor was talking to him, in the barking yap of a Scottish terrier but it made no sense at all. He had no urge to bite the Doctor, though, so eventually the Doctor gave up talking and simply plonked his firm little body against his and waited. The dog made a warm spot against Sirius' side, and gradually Sirius' breathing settled. 

"I was in a prison," said Sirius, finally, still as Padfoot. "I was in a prison, and it was the worst place you can imagine." It was something he could never have told the Doctor in human form. Human faces show so much emotion, and he didn't think he could bear the shame on his own face, or the pity on the Doctor's. 

"I've seen some terrible places," said the Doctor, calmly. "I have nae problem imagining a place so bad that even the name makes you run away. I'm still running from some of them. How d'you think I came to be strolling through the space-time continuum when I found you?" 

Sirius settled his head on top of the Doctor's back, and breathed in the by-now familiar smell of the TARDIS that always hung about him, even as a Scottie dog. Electricity and dust, the faint smell of rain, the feeling of a storm gathering a long way distant. Eventually he closed his eyes, heaved a great doggy sigh, and slept. 

Something tickled his face, a random, sporadic flutter against his long nose. Beside him, the Doctor twitched his ear, and twitched it again. Sirius pushed him upright, and nosed at his ear.

"Ooh!" the Doctor said, suddenly, realising how dogs dealt with this problem. He lifted his hind leg to scratch at it, then scratched furiously. He closed his eyes, ecstatic. "Och, that's bloody amazing! That's even better than when I'm bipedal. What a revelation!" 

Sirius smiled, a big, wide, doggy smile. The Doctor's glee was extremely cheering, much like chocolate when facing Dementors. He gave the Doctor's whiskery face a good lick, fortified by his presence. Then he lifted his nose to scent the air. 

"Where are we?" he said, looking around. "How far into the forest did we go?" There were noises now, people gathering at the edge of the woods. His eyesight wasn't as good in dog-form, but even he could make out the cool white glow of wands lighting up the night. The witches and wizards of Pickering Lower were organising a hunting party. He stood, stretched, and shook himself into human form, and he picked up the Doctor. "Best not to be in the forest tonight," he said, and turned them towards Pickering proper.


	3. Chapter 3

Safe at the Red Lion, the Doctor demanded he be changed back. "I cannae think, not at this height. This close to the ground, it's all rabbits and trails and, ooh, who peed here, then? I never knew there was so much going on at ground level." 

Sirius reversed the spell, stowed his wand in his pocket, and flopped onto the bed, exhausted from his panicked run into the forest. 

"Oh, that is clever," said the Doctor, now in his own form. He turned a circle on his heel, stretched his arms up and lifted his knees one by one. "A complete metamorphic transition, mass and all, and you do it all with a swish of your wee twig." The accent had not yet completely left him. 

Sirius rolled on his side to watch him. "One carefully calibrated swish, and a well-worded incantation, actually." He had not been this tired, not for a long time, not since the days after he escaped. He thought of the Gribbock boy, and how he must be feeling. Sirius at least had been a man, with a man's memories and experiences, to say nothing of the stubborn Black nature, which, to his family's credit had given him strength. He didn't want to imagine a child in that place. 

"So, what have we got, then?" said the Doctor, striding up and down the room, obviously enjoying his long legs. "We've got a weird animal on the loose, we've got a group of your weird high-physics cultists living behind a photonic shield. We've got… I'm sorry, I have to interrupt myself to ask – pixies? Are there really pixies out there? What's a pixie, when it's at home? Where does a pixie call home, come to mention it?"

"Cornwall," said Sirius. "Pixies are awful, they're pests, and they bite. They're blue." He held his hands apart to indicate the size, but even that movement exhausted him, and he flopped against the pillows.

"You all right, mate?" The Doctor leaned over the bed, and touched Sirius' forehead. "You're easily a couple of degrees below standard human basal temperature." He perched on the edge of the bed, and rubbed Sirius's hands briskly then pulled a blanket over him. "I'll go rustle up something to eat, shall I? Should still be someone in the kitchens. Or I could cook." He sounded exceptionally eager about that idea. 

He slipped out the door, and Sirius heard his footsteps clipping merrily down the stairs to the kitchens. A few minutes later, the footsteps returned, panicked, and the Doctor burst through the door, his eyes wild. 

"Change me back! Quickly, change me back!" 

Behind him, Sirius could hear more footsteps, coming quickly up the stairs and towards their room. The Doctor locked the door and put his shoulder into it for good measure, his face anguished. 

Someone knocked. "You in there, Black? Can we debrief?" It was Jack Harkness' voice. 

Sirius pulled himself upright and drew his wand. The Doctor clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes shut, ready for the spell to hit him. 

"Stop it," said Sirius, softly. "You'll botch it, all tensed up." The Doctor let his shoulders down slowly, and Sirius released the spell with a sweep of his wand. _"Cú Faoil"_ rolled off his tongue easily, but at the last minute, the door handle rattled. The Doctor spun mid-transformation, sonic screwdriver out and switched on to lock the door. Sirius felt the device integrate with his spell, and tried to make a correction but it was too late. 

He stared at the dog on the floorboards. "I haven't splinched a transfiguration since I was thirteen." 

"I dinnae understand," the Doctor muttered. The very tip of his bristling tail glowed faintly blue. The Doctor turned a tight circle, around and around, trying to catch a glimpse of it. 

Sirius picked him up, and plonked him down on the bed. "Sit!" he said firmly. "Sit down, and don't move." He walked to the door and threw it open. Jack strode into the room, and the Doctor sat down and curled his tail underneath him, obscuring any glow. 

"Got to be stern with the wee man, do you?" said Jack. He reached over, and pulled at the Doctor's ears, roughing up the fur on his head. "You're a good boy, aren't you, Dougal? Don't let Mr Black say otherwise."

The Doctor looked at Sirius, with a confused and agonised expression. Slowly, his behind began to wiggle back and forth, and beneath him, Sirius could see the thick tail start to wag. He understood; it was an instinctive response, but one that would certainly give them away.

"Please, call me Sirius." It seemed the best way to distract Jack's attention. 

Jack did indeed swing around to gaze speculatively at Sirius. "You look terrible. Did something happen? I went looking for you but you vanished into thin air."

"We took a stroll through the forest," said Sirius. "I thought we'd see if we could pick up a trail." 

"That's brave of you," said Jack. "None of the villagers are planning to set foot in there until the sun's up again. We got the man to the hospital, by the way. He's pretty torn up, but the doctors seem to think that he'll pull through, barring infection." 

"That's good news," said Sirius. "Could they identify the animal?" 

Jack pulled a file from inside his greatcoat. "No, but I've got a few ideas. Have you noticed that the moon's full? And that the last attack was just under a month ago. This is a case file from Torchwood – the first, actually, involving Queen Victoria." 

The Doctor sat up on the bed, his hackles up. "Oh, that's what it was! It was so familiar but I couldnae place the scent." Since this was delivered in a series of barks and yips, it was unintelligible to Jack. 

"You'd almost think he wants in on the conversation, wouldn't you?" Jack said. 

"He's quite possessive," said Sirius. He picked the Doctor up, keeping his tail carefully concealed, and carried him over so he could stand on Sirius' thigh and put his front feet on the table. He scratched the Doctor's whiskers and ruffled his ears. 

"Thanks," the Doctor said with a pleased wuffle. He rested his chin on his forelegs, close to the text of the file. Hopefully he could read better than Sirius could in dog form. 

"Queen Victoria was the subject of an assassination attempt in 1879, out on the Scottish moors," said Jack, spreading the papers across the table. "Only, assassination wasn't the plan; it was an attempted colonisation by an alien species, something we think was the source of the legend of the werewolf." 

"Werewolves aren't aliens," said Sirius. He was surprised that he hadn't noticed the full moon. It used to be second nature, to keep his eye on the phase of the moon, to always know where Remus was going to be when it was full. 

Jack watched him, contemplative. "You say that like werewolves are not particularly surprising to you," he said. 

"That's because I don't work for the Ministry of Defence," said Sirius. "I'm with the Ministry of Magic, and we've been dealing with werewolves since the seventeenth century." 

The Doctor snarled a warning. "Are you sure about this, Sirius?"

Sirius stroked the fur down along his spine to soothe him. "It's all right, Dougal. Jack and I are just putting all our cards on the table."

"Oh, you're one of those people! With the wands and the fireplace transport system," said Jack. "I should have realised, with your clever little dog, and the disappearing act. Well, I'm glad you're doing your bit finally." 

"Werewolves aren't aliens," said Sirius, again. "But if it was werewolves –" 

"It was," the Doctor said, with a harrumphing bark. "I was there, with Queen Victoria. Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform, very distinctive odour. Blood and mercury and a hint of pine." 

"Then we need to take Willoughby into care," finished Sirius. "Because in a lunar month, he'll probably be growing claws and fur." 

"We need to find the original carrier, too," said Jack. "Otherwise we'll be meeting again in three and half weeks." He leaned forward. "And just between me and you – and Dougal, I suppose, if you're into that –" 

"Here it comes," said the Doctor. "Hold onto your trousers, laddie."

" – There's plenty of other reasons to meet up with you," Jack said. He pressed his hand over Sirius' in a way that could be safely dismissed as comradely, but just as easily could mean more. 

Sirius didn't pull his hand away. "Let's get Pickering safe first, before we discuss the future, shall we? I'll send a message to the Ministry, and have someone contact you about how to proceed with Willoughby. I'll need to speak with the wizard population here, and see what we can do about the werewolf." And talk to the Gribbocks, he thought, to find out exactly what their son carried home from Azkaban. 

In the empty taproom, all the stools were piled on top of tables. Beside the dusty bottles of rarely used liqueurs were racks of crisps and sweets. The brands weren't familiar, this being a Muggle pub, but Sirius thought of that hopeless despair he'd felt in the forest. He slipped behind the high wooden bar and grabbed a couple of chocolate bars, their paper wrappers dusty but intact over the foil. It couldn't hurt to have it on hand. He patted his pockets for money to leave on the counter, finding only a strange hexagonal coin he'd won on Altair. He looked down at the Doctor on the other side of the bar. 

"Do you have any money on you?" 

The Doctor merely tilted his head at him, first one way, then the other. Sirius sighed, and left the hexagonal coin beside the till. Maybe it was worth something. 

Sirius called out to Jack as he left the pub. "Here, Jack!" He threw a chocolate bar and Jack caught it out of the air easily. 

He held it, curious. "What is this in aid of? Low blood sugar?" 

It was difficult to explain the sensation of being close to a Dementor, even to a Muggle who knew something of the magic world. "Just keep it close. If things get desperate, eat the thing." 

"Okay then," said Jack. "Good advice in any circumstance, I suppose." He gave Sirius a quick salute, and went on his way, tucking the chocolate bar into a pocket.


	4. Chapter 4

Sirius walked down the hidden path to Pickering Lower, ostensibly to send an owl to the Ministry, but also to have some time to talk with the Doctor. 

"Are you nae worried about the werewolf, being out at night?" the Doctor asked. He was barely visible in the long grass by the verge, but for the blue glow of the tip of his tail. 

"I've faced werewolves before. I know how to be careful," said Sirius. He indicated his wand, out and ready if needed. "Doctor, things are not good for werewolves in this time – they're not all that positive even in my time. There's a lot of bad ideas – that they're evil, that they can't be helped, that they shouldn't be allowed in wizarding communities. I'm worried for Willoughby. I'm worried for whoever bit him in the first place." 

"That’s very idealistic, you know. I would tend tae think the one who bit him knew exactly what he was doing," said the Doctor. "I'd warn against getting too invested in this beastie. In my experience, anyway." 

Sirius frowned at the little dog. "How extensive is your experience, exactly?" He hadn't expected to encounter this kind of absolute thinking, not from the Doctor, who seemed to be able to find a positive thought for anything, from slime mould to planet-eating robots. 

The Doctor trotted on, cutting a vee through the long grass. "I was nearly eaten. It's definitely one way to get to know a creature, being eaten by it." 

Sirius thought of Remus, not the Remus people saw, the slightly shabby bookish man who needed a good meal or three, but the Remus whose focused, ardent gaze made the hair at Sirius' nape prickle and his stomach lurch. "That's not the only way to know a werewolf, Doctor," he said.

The Doctor stopped short, and the grass shifted around him. "Really?" he said, amazed. 

Sirius nodded. In the dark and the quiet, with only the faint blue light, he felt an intense sadness for the creature prowling the night alone. It would be dawn soon. It would wake up somewhere, alone and in pain and probably confused. 

"They're people," he said, finally. "They hate and love and forgive the same as we do. They deserve the same chance to do good in the world that we do. Not that we're all given that chance," he added. 

They walked on in silence as the darkness thinned, and Sirius tried not to think about the way dawn came in on the island, how Azkaban made you think, every time, that morning would bring some hope, and instead delivered rattling breath and draped misery. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked the Doctor. 

He looked down at the black dog by his ankles. "Talk about what?" 

"This prison of yours." The Doctor jumped down onto the path, and pushed his wet nose into Sirius' palm. 

Sirius kept walking, a determined pace. "It leaves a mark on you," he said, finally. "It never feels very far away. Even when I'm travelling with you, I feel that Azkaban is waiting for me." I hauled myself out, he reminded himself. For Harry, for James and Lily, for Remus I climbed out of that place. I can stand to talk about it, here, with my friend. 

"Will they send the werewolf there?" asked the Doctor. They'd come to the village square, but only Allaun Tittler remained, hanging tools about his belt, ready to go into the forest as soon as it was fully light. 

"Possibly," said Sirius. "It's already attacked someone. But really, it depends on the mood of the Ministry at any given moment – that, and whether they can sweep it under the rug easily or not." 

"Morning," said Allaun. "Any luck with your search last night? We packed it in at three in the morning. Didn't see a thing, which is good in a way." He picked up a large pickling jar full of tiny insects swarming all over each other.

"No, no luck at all, I'm afraid," said Sirius. "Woodlice?" he asked, pointing at the jar. 

Allaun nodded. "Going to try and settle the bowtruckles down, if I can. I'm worried they're going to be next to decamp, and then we'll probably lose the biggest trees. 

Sirius watched him wrap the jar carefully in a rag and tuck it into a knapsack. His belt, hung with tree hook, knife and a coil of rope, also bore a woodcutter's charm wound around it, a thin twist of vines of different plants, still green, cut in the last two days. It had been a long time since Sirius' last herbology class, but a man with a werewolf for a lover knew wolfsbane when he saw it. There was mistletoe, too, an older repellent against lycanthropy. 

"You know," said Sirius. "You know what's out there – do you know who it is? Have you been protecting them all along? Because if that Muggle man is still breathing in a month's time, there's going to be more trouble than any obliviation can cover up." 

Allaun loosened the knife in the scabbard on his belt. "We've been nothing but polite, mate, but when it comes to it, you're not one of us. We take care of our own, all right?" 

Sirius put out his hands, placating. "I understand. I said I didn't want to cause trouble. I just don't want anyone else to be hurt." 

"None of my business, what goes on in Muggle territory," Allaun said, his mouth grim. "Bad enough we have to skulk behind illusions and cantrips. Let them look after their own people, just as we do." He swung his knapsack over his shoulder and headed into the forest. 

"That didnae go well," said the Doctor. "I wonder how long he's known." 

"And why it's something that's suddenly out of control," said Sirius. "I think I'll send off that owl now." If Sirius' younger self could see him now, he'd be appalled: voluntarily reporting to the Ministry. Perhaps he'd finally become responsible? At least with the Ministry involved, Willoughby would be able to get some care.

The Postmistress was Mrs Vim, and she wore a traditional pointed hat and a pink quilted dressing gown as she sorted the morning's mail and fed the row of sleepy owls that had delivered it. A sleeping toddler in orange striped pajamas clung to her hip as she worked, but did not wake, not even when a screech owl landed with a large parcel wrapped in brown paper. 

Mrs Vim gave Sirius a quill and parchment, and he scrawled a note warning the Ministry of a possible werewolf attack in the Muggle village of Pickering. He did not sign the note, but rolled it up, sealed it, and passed it to Mrs Vim who summoned a large barn owl with a click of her fingers. 

"Charged to whom, dearie?" she asked, her own quill in hand to note it down. 

"Black Family, Grimmauld Place," he said, without thinking. Then again, honestly, who'd notice an extra postage charge? They'd probably put it down to his Great Uncle Arcturus, who was given to random wandering in the countryside. As he left the Post Office, he did the mental calculations, and realise that Arcturus was dead by now. Oh, well. They did always say he was eccentric. 

In the village square, the Doctor stood four-square with his ears cocked. "Do you hear that?" he said. His tail wasn't very visible in the growing daylight, as long as he stood away from the shadows. 

Sirius tilted his head in a similar posture, though he couldn't hear anything but the noise of the forest, and the sounds of people beginning to move about the village. The sun peeped over the rooftops now, and the birdsong was riotous. He shook his head. In human form, he couldn't pick up whatever the Doctor was hearing. He bent down to scratch the Doctor's head. "What do you hear, then? Tell me about it." 

"It sounds like a high-coherence optical amplifier," said the Doctor with difficulty. These were words no Scottie dog was every supposed to say. He coughed afterwards, his tongue poking out.

"Is your dog all right?" asked Alice Featherfort, walking past on the way to the forest for her morning flight. "You should ask Allaun about it – he makes a nice anti-hairball potion, lots of creosote in it. Fixed my cat right up after one dose." 

"I just bet it did," the Doctor said. 

Sirius patted the Doctor briskly along his sides as if strumming the cough out of him. "Thank you, I will." 

"You will nae," said the Doctor. "I will bite you somewhere verrry tender." 

Alice shook herself into the form of a huge magpie, and spread her white-tipped wings. She soared off over the rooftops and towards the trees of the forest. 

"Which way was the noise?" said Sirius. "Show me. And on the way, please explain what a high-coherence thingy is, so I'll recognise it when I see it." 

The sound came from deep in the forest. "It's a way of amplifying light," said the Doctor, as they walked through the village and down the muddy path. "It was what I used on the Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform in 1879. Turned the moon into a laser, amplified it, made it a weapon."

"And someone's using it now?" asked Sirius. The path they were following was starting to open out into a clearing. Half in shadow, half in early light, a ramshackle cottage leaned against a spreading ash tree. 

"Not unless someone's got hold of the Koh-i-nor, they aren't." The Doctor paused on the path, nostrils flaring, ears pricked forward. "Hold up - it smells like someone's burning lemons in there." 

Sirius moved before the _vomere_ jinx exploded outwards. He scooped the Doctor up with a hand under his belly and leapt behind the trunk of a tree. The sickly yellow lights flew out of the open door, and zinged through the space where they were standing a moment ago. 

"Wait, wait, was that a spell? Is someone shooting spells at us?" The Doctor wriggled in excitement. Sirius tucked him in hard against his side, and drew his own wand. It was awkward, casting with an angry Scottie dog on his hip, but _Protego_ rolled from his wand easily, and the spells bounced off harmless into the treetops. 

"Are we in a battle?" shouted the Doctor. "Is it a magical battle?" He barked with excitement, his body thrashing against Sirius', and his legs paddling in the air. 

"If it's a battle, it's a fairly poor effort." Sirius advanced on the house, his wand extended forward. "I don't want to hurt you," he shouted to the people in the house. "I want to help!" 

A figure moved in front of one of the windows, and a woman's voice called out. "Go away! We just want to be left alone!" A paroxysm of curses and jinxes zoomed from the open door: leg-lockers and stingers and knockbacks, a barrage of schoolyard spells. Sirius batted them aside or simply evaded them as he walked towards the house. Piles of timber and rubbish cluttered the path towards the house, providing plenty of cover, though when he ducked behind a heap of criss-crossed pine branches a writhing mass of wood-beetles burst from the leaf mulch and ran over his shoes. The Doctor stopped wriggling about immediately and tucked his feet up under him. Sirius couldn't blame him; beetles felt terrible in fur. He took a peek from behind the woodpile, to see what the Gribbocks were doing. 

A line of washing left out overnight dripped wet with the dew, and the house seemed to be dripping, too, with hanging shutters, loose roof tiles and windows jammed half open. This was an unhappy place. Mr Gribbock eyed him from behind the front door; his face was gaunt and his hair greying. "You fuck off, you Ministry fucker. Had enough of your sort. Fuck off, or I'll send you home spitting slugs, you see if I don't." 

Sirius put his hand out, holding his wand loosely, and stepped out from behind the pile of rotting logs. "I don't want trouble," he said. "I know your son's in trouble, and I want to help him." 

"You'll fucking shut up about my son," said Mr Gribbock, from behind the half-open door. "My boy's my problem. He served his time, and he's not your piece of meat no more. You can go to the Minister and tell him to shove his own wand up his arse, if he can find either." 

Sirius by now had a foot on the doorstep. "I'm not from the Ministry. I want to help your son, Mr Gribbock. A Muggle man was badly hurt last night. He's in a Muggle hospital right now – do you understand me?" Under his arm, the Doctor was threshing, trying to get to the ground. Sirius hitched him up higher, but his little body was slowly slipping down. 

Mr Gribbock lifted his wand – hand hewn wood, poorly shaped; no wonder all he could raise were schoolboy hexes – and sighted down it, with the twisted end pointing directly in Sirius' face. "I don't give a fuck about no Muggle bastard. I'm taking care of my family. So take your dog and fuck off home to London."

The Doctor slithered to the ground finally, and shot between Gribbock's legs. Sirius could see the blue light of his tail in the darkened hallway. "Doctor!" he said. 

Gribbock was distracted enough by the intrusion not to shoot Sirius' face full of vomiting curses. He swung away to see where the dog had gone, and Sirius could see past him into the house. Inside, Sirius saw a woman, stooped down to catch the creature that had invaded her home. The Doctor stood with his front paws on her knee, and she ruffled his whiskery chin while he made small huffing noises. 

"It's all right," said the Doctor. "I know you're afraid, but my friend here can help you. He's really very good at this magic thing, and he's a good man. Will you let him help you? I want your son to be safe in his own home, just the same as you." 

The woman couldn't understand the words, of course, but the sentiment of was very clear. She looked up at Sirius, halfway in the house by now, and a sob escaped her tightly pressed lips. 

"Can you help my son?" said Mrs Gribbock, panic and desperation seeping out of her. 

Sirius tucked his wand into his belt. "I'm going to try," he said. "Tell me about Fen." 

Mrs Gribbock swallowed, and avoided the gaze of her husband. "You'll want to come out the back," she said, and gestured with one hand down the narrow corridor. The Doctor sneezed once, and trotted towards the backdoor, and Mrs Gribbock opened the door for him. 

Walking through the house, Sirius felt some of the dread lift from his shoulders. The Gribbocks were obviously poor, and the house in ill-repair, but there were signs of a happy life here: brightly painted bookshelves and a fat crocheted tea-cosy with a competent heating charm on it. The mantelpiece leaned, but it bore a black and white photo, clipped from a newspaper, showing young Fen with a small trophy held proudly. Fen was small and sandy-haired, and his buck-toothed figure was perfectly still in the print.

"Cricket," said Mr Gribbock, his voice hoarse. "It's a Muggle sport; Fen had a passion for it. He used to run away to the Muggles to play." He nodded towards the photograph. "That were in the Muggle newspaper, we were terrified about what might come of it. But nobody said nothing. Allaun said if we keep our head down, there'd be no problem, and he were right, up to the end of it." 

"What happened? At the end of it?" Sirius asked. He'd grown up in a time where mixing with Muggles was merely frowned upon, but it had been, in the past, more than just an uncouth act, it had been criminal. 

Mr Gribbock shook his head, perplexed. "I don't understand the whole of it, myself. Fen, he came home from a game with one of the Muggles, an older man. He wanted to take Fen to the police – the Muggle police! – he said someone had been giving him trouble, and it had to stop." He was angry now, his face flushed. "Like I don't know my own son. Like I need a Muggle telling me how to keep my family safe." 

Sirius winced. "And then?" 

"Well, the Ministry might look the other way for a bit of cricket," said Mr Gribbock. "But bringing a Muggle though the Masking Spell we've got on the village, well. The Aurors broke a window to drag Fen out of the house in the middle of the night. And that was that; weren't much of a trial, and we never saw him again, not till his sentence was up." 

He led Sirius to a small shack close to the edge of the forest, a woodshed. "We emptied it, see," he said, pointing at the piles of firewood heaped about the clearing. 

The woodshed leaned to one side, and the place where the tin met the earth was cleanly exposed, as if someone had given it a good shove from the inside in an attempt to tip it. 

"You know what he is," said Sirius. "Was he that way before…" It was still hard to say the word. 

"No, he came back from prison with it," said Mr Gribbock. "That and more." He seemed to sag himself, much like his house, now that the defiance had fled him. "He weren't my boy, not anymore." 

"Allaun helped us build this up strong," said his wife, showing Sirius the tin walls reinforced with planks and the ceiling hung with wolfsbane. "He's always been fond of Fen, even before he went away. And when we first had him home, before we even knew what… what he was, Allaun took him out in the forest, said the fresh air would help him." 

Sirius turned around in the tiny shed. The walls were dented and buckled where Fen had flung himself bodily against the tin, trying to escape. He wondered how much of that urge was the werewolf driving him, and how much was the sheer panic of being enclosed in a small place. For a long time after he escaped, Sirius had slept out of doors, unable to think straight with a roof above him or walls surrounding him. 

"What happened last night?" he asked. He watched the Doctor nosing the place where the tin had split like a cocoon. Something there made his ears flatten and his hackles rise. 

Mr Gribbock shook his head. "Dunno, dunno – I reckon he was getting angrier and angrier each time he…" 

"Transformed," said Sirius. "There's no need to be afraid to say it, not here." 

"He were angry enough, the first time – we had no idea, see, and he tore the shutters off his window, went mad in the forest. Then, in here, he could change safely, like, but he hurt himself instead – clawing and biting," Mr Gribbock shook his head. "He was so angry – I thought, when I first saw him, Azkaban's drained the life out him. You'd think I'd be happy to see him full of energy, my boy, but no, not this way." 

The Doctor crouched low to the ground now, hackles up in a ridge down his spine and his lips pulled back to show fierce teeth through his whiskers. "Psychovore," he said, in a low growl. "Some kind of psychic vampire's been all over this place." 

"I don't understand," said Sirius. "Vampires drink blood, and anyway, I very much doubt a vampire could take on a werewolf, especially one as angry as Fen." 

The Gribbocks looked at him, startled, but they were reasonably accepting of a familiar with whom you can have a conversation. 

"Nae a vampire," said the Doctor. "Psychic vampire, totally different. This is something very ugly, Sirius. This is unnatural. Here, let me find the right resonance, and I'll show you." He twitched his tail, and it lit up blue, then he thwacked it against the side of the shed, so that the colour grew brighter and the sonic hum higher pitched. 

The small shed filled with a rising hum that made Sirius' teeth ache, but the blue light crept along the dented tin until all the walls were illuminated. Within the blue, Sirius saw dark lines stretching along the walls and ceiling. The colour intensified, and the shadowy lines became clearer: arms reaching out to grasp, with long, pointed fingers at the very ends that could snag and snatch. 

"Fingerprints," said the Doctor. "Psychic fingerprints." 

Sirius turned in a circle, looking at the marks. "Dementor," he said. Out in the forest, far away, something howled as if in deep misery, and Sirius shuddered. "It's waiting," he said. "It knows what he is, it's here to claim him back." He wanted to be sick, at the helplessness of Fen's condition, at the idea that Dementors were near. A terrible realisation hit him: would the thing know? Would it smell some trace of Azkaban on him, and swoop down, wrap around him… He reached down to push his fingers into the Doctor's wiry coat, and breath in the doggish warmth of him. "We have to help him," he said, softly. 

The Doctor nosed at his hand. "Of course we do, my friend.


	5. Chapter 5

Fen had not returned from his night's work, the Gribbocks said. Sirius looked up at the sky as he ran through the forest; when the trees thinned, he saw a morning blue, with soft white clouds. The howling continued, though, despite it being well past sunrise now. 

"Werewolves don't manifest in daylight," he said to the Doctor, who galloped at his side, an ever-present dark and whiskery shadow. "As soon as there was enough light to see, Remus always became human again." 

"Maybe it's stress? Or this Dementor?" The Doctor leapt over a fallen log, paused to pick up the scent again and turned them to the north. "

Sirius had his wand out, ready for any surprises. "Anything is possible, with a Dementor," he said. "And it sounds as though Fen has plenty for them to feed on. Poor boy." Sirius wanted to run – anywhere, to the Red Lion Inn, or the TARDIS, or to the train station to take him to London, even if it wasn't London of his time, but all he could think of was what that boy had suffered, still a child, really, in the arms of Dementors. If he could make some of that right, he had to try. He wondered if he could still cast a Patronus, after all that had happened to him. The idea of facing a Dementor turned his stomach. He suddenly missed Remus so intensely that he tripped and stumbled. He stopped to catch his breath, leaning into the solidity of an oak tree. He could feel a thin sheen of sweat across his forehead. Another baleful howl echoed through the forest, long and reedy. All around them, birds fell silent. 

"Och, there goes another one," said the Doctor, prancing belly-deep through the fallen leaves, ears pricked forward. "Another optical amplifier. Perpendicular to the first. Someone's building a fence out of light – probably Jack and his Torchwood mates. I wonder how they're managing with the ambient light levels?" 

"Don't ask me," said Sirius. He leaned his elbows on his knees and rested his forehead in his hands. "I just want to get the Gribbock boy safe and secure." As if in answer to this, the werewolf screamed out his rage, and it echoed through the trees.

The Doctor tramped through the leaves until he could put his forelegs up on Sirius' knee. "You ken we might not be able to help him? First lesson of travelling with me: the days when you can save everyone are few and far between." 

Sirius nodded. "To be honest, anything that comes after Azkaban is repair work anyway. I can't see how there's enough of Fen to make those repairs. A boy his age, he should be at Hogwarts, learning magic and making friends, and that's going to be impossible for a werewolf. It was hard enough in my time." He sat down cross-legged with his back to the tree trunk and pulled the Doctor into his lap, a warm and heavy mass of comfort. 

"You had a werewolf friend?" asked the Doctor. "You understand a lot about the business of being a werewolf; I thought it was because you could do the whole transformation thing, but it doesn't seem to be the same." 

"We all learned to transform," said Sirius. "So our friend wouldn't have to go through that by himself, we all learned a spell far beyond our abilities. God, we could have died, or been lost forever in our animal bodies, but what do you fear at that age?" He stroked the Doctor along his spine, smoothing the curly black fur. 

"I know the feeling," the Doctor said. "Sometimes I wonder how I'm alive at all." His ears flicked forward and Sirius saw his nostrils flare. "That man with the woodlice is coming through this way," he said, with a warning growl.

"Probably looking for Fen, too," said Sirius. He put the Doctor on the ground and stood up. "Allaun!" he called out. "Are you there? Any luck with the search?" 

"Hulloo!" came Allaun's answering call. He emerged from between two pine trees, a thick cudgel crooked in one elbow, his wand within easy grasp. "I spoke with the Gribbocks; they told me you wanted to help young Fen." There was something possessive in the way the boy's name slipped from his mouth. Sirius found his own hands had gone still. 

"Indeed," said Sirius. "I've helped others before him." 

"Have you, now?" Allaun drew closer, close enough to examine Sirius' face. He gave a dry laugh. "Oh, you're more like him than you've told anyone, aren't you? I see it in your face – you've been there. What did you do, then, to get sent to that hellish place? What did you touch that wasn't yours to finger?" 

Sirius loosened his grip on his wand, so it hung easily and ready in his hand. "I want Fen to be safe," he said. "I think I can help him to understand how to be careful now. His parents want the best for him." 

"I know what's best for him!" Allaun shouted. "I've always known what's best for him!" He raised his wand, and Sirius drew in his will for an attack, but before either of them could release a spell, a long grey blur shot past, and Allaun went flying. 

There was barely time for Allaun to scream, before the werewolf ripped out his throat. He died quickly, his last breath and blood gurgling out of him, while the werewolf stood astride his body and watched. It was over before Sirius could even say the man's name. 

"Fen," he said, standing quite still. Rapid movement would override any rational thought that Fen could muster. "Can you hear me, Fen? Come home, Fen, let your parents look after you. You don't have to kill anyone else." It was daylight, Sirius thought, it was possible he could fight the urge to kill. Remus sometimes became calmer, in the early hours of the morning, as if he could feel the power of the moon waning. 

The werewolf turned and stalked towards him, snarling, with shoulders hunched and teeth bared. Sirius felt the Doctor's body bunch up at his heels, ready to leap forward in a futile attempt to stop him, but Fen's body shifted as he walked, first to a fur-covered human-shape walking on hands and feet, and then to a naked youth on two legs. He stared at Sirius with sunken, watery eyes. His canine teeth still protruded against his front lip and it gave him a slight lisp as he spoke. Blood streamed down from his mouth, staining the pale skin of his chest bright red. 

"But I like killing. What if I want to stay like this and kill forever?"

Sirius was taken aback; he'd never seen a werewolf willingly, voluntarily change form before. "How are you able to do that?" It was the first thing that leapt to mind, even above Allaun's terrible death.

Fen laughed, his teeth stained red too. He pointed upwards to the sky, and when Sirius looked in that direction, he saw a pale moon floating against the morning blue. "This is the best time," Fen said, wetly. "The anger in the darkness is good, oh, so good, but the madness means I can barely get to enjoy it. But the morning moon is weak, and the change is easy. Back and forth I can go, and I get to choose who I hurt." 

Sirius understood now how Fen had survived Azkaban; instead of fighting the atmosphere there as Sirius had done, Fen had soaked it up and forged himself into a weapon. 

"Oh, laddie," said the Doctor in a sad little whine. "Oh, lad, I'm so sorry." 

Fen looked down at the tiny dog, nonplussed, despite the blood dripping from his body and onto the ground. "What kind of dog has two hearts?" he said, and lifted his foot to stamp on him. The Doctor skipped out of the way and scampered to Sirius' other side. 

"You don't have to be this way," said Sirius, desperately. "Don't let Azkaban shape you. Don't let the wolf shape you. Shape yourself. Be someone who matters. I did, Fen. You can too." 

Fen drew closer to Sirius and leaned forward, hissing through his teeth. "I am shaping myself, don't you see? When I went away, I was Fen Gribbock, the doolally boy, a nobody boy. Now? I'm Fenrir now, I'm Fenrir and my back is grey, and nobody's going to fuck with me again." This last, Fenrir howled, and his muzzle extended as his eyes yellowed. He snapped great teeth at Sirius, dripping bloodstained foam. Sirius moved before he realised what he was doing, and with his foot planted square, kicked the werewolf hard in the chest. It only threw Fenrir a few yards, but it gave Sirius time to bring up his wand. His heart thumped in his chest with realisation and sorrow – this was Fenrir? Fenrir Greyback, who was going to grow up to join Voldemort, who would come across a young Remus Lupin in a garden somewhere, and would change his life forever. And Sirius had wanted to help him. Sirius had never cast any of the Unforgiveable curses, but he had the knowledge to do so, and the first mouthful of Avada Kedavra came to his lips. 

Then a dark shadow slipped across the forest floor as clouds obscured the moon above, and all the warmth went out of the day. Sirius felt a familiar chill sliding down him like dank water, and all will to throw the curse seeped out of him. When the Dementor slid into the clearing, Sirius thought he would rather take on the werewolf: at least there would be blood and the passion of Greyback's hatred. The Dementor had a similar effect on Fenrir, whose leap fell short, and whose transformation halted halfway between man and wolf. He gave a terrified, pitiful whine, and, scrambling with his belly low to the ground, bolted from the clearing. 

Sirius drew his wand, and reached for a memory, any memory that could bolster his chances of casting the Patronus charm, but nausea and sickly panic had chased thought from his mind. His mouth was so dry, he doubted he could even say the incantation. The Dementor drifted across the clearing, and, as if catching the scent of Sirius' terror, turned sharply in his direction.

A whiskery cold nose pushed into Sirius's palm, somehow grounding and reassuring. "Change me back, Sirius," said the Doctor, calmly. "You can do it – just wave the wand and change me back." He turned and trotted out towards the middle of the clearing. 

It was a simple thing to release the transfiguration on the Doctor. Sirius gave a flick of his wand. The Doctor unfolded upward from the tiny dog's body mid-stride, and kept walking as if transfiguration were a thing he dealt with daily. He put two fingers to his mouth and gave a ripping whistle. The Dementor jerked in midair as if pulled on a string. It was so close that Sirius felt rotting grey tendrils of cloth brush his forehead as it turned.

"Oy! You, the sad flying mop! What do we call these things, Sirius? Dementoids? Oy, Dementoid! Have I got a feast for you!" The Doctor flung his arms wide. "Come and have a taste."

"Doctor, run," croaked Sirius. The Doctor was not a wizard, he had no Patronus, he wasn't even human. 

The Dementor swooped towards the Doctor, and he held out his hand for it, snatched at the tattered cowl and hauled the thing down towards him like a balloon on a string. "You're one creature. You think you can drain everything wonderful I've seen and felt? I've seen galaxies born." 

A familiar, horrible rattle came from the Dementor as it began to feed. Streams of light poured from the Doctor, and still he stood there with a grin on his face. "That's it. Suck it in. I've stood in a dead sea while life coalesced into being. I've seen a billion people push hatred aside in a single moment. Singing crystals the size of stars. Hot air balloons rising up in the morning – ooh, I love that. Birds made from light. Those big, wet, doggy kisses which should be disgusting but are filled with such joy. Ten lifetimes of things I've seen, so much love, so much beauty. One soul can't contain it; I barely can. You're just a thing. And you know what? You're a small, petty thing at that." 

The hungry rattle became a wheezing cough, and the Dementor sunk lower in the air, so that the cowl draped the leaf-covered earth. Still the Doctor kept his grip on the thing, gazing into the hood, unafraid. "Come on, buddy. You can do better than that. Bumblebees in the sunshine. That first drink of water when you've thirsted for a year. That's it. Eat it up. You don't want to stop, you'll keep going until…" 

The Dementor hit the ground with a solid, meaty thud. Sirius stared at the pooled grey of the cowl, astonished. It started to break up immediately, a dirty frost melting away in sunlight.

"Did… did you kill it?" Could Dementors even be killed? Sirius tried to push himself upright, but his arms and legs were still as weak as thin custard. 

The Doctor poked the remnants of the thing with the toe of his trainer and shook his head. "I doubt it. I'm not sure it was ever really alive to begin with." He left it, and walked to where Sirius still sat on the ground. "Here," he said, and held out a hand. When Sirius took it, he pulled him upright with one smooth motion, and threw his arms around him in a hug. Sirius started, then stood, leaning into the Doctor's strength and warmth and friendship. Fear and sadness seemed to stream out of him and into the ground, until he finally felt he could stand alone. 

His chin on Sirius' shoulder, the Doctor gave a chuckle. "Hah. Dementoids." 

Sirius remembered his first aid, and took out the dusty chocolate bar. He snapped a piece off for the Doctor, and ate the other half himself, walking about the clearing and chewing. Chocolate worked: warmth and sugar settled the last of the anxiety. 

"Serotonin," said the Doctor, indistinctly. "Good old serotonin. And caffeine. Also good." 

"I knew him," said Sirius, with his thoughts finally ordered. "Fenrir, I knew him. I fought him, in my time. He's going to do horrible, devastating things." 

"Oh, dear," said the Doctor. He licked the tips of his fingers, and pulled Sirius back into a hug. 

For Sirius, the words were spilling out now, fast and unthinking. "You say we mustn't do anything that might change the timeline, but he's going to hurt someone I love, so much. So very much. Doctor, I can't not try to stop him."

The Doctor took him by the shoulders and held him away to look into his face. "No, you can't, can you? I see that. Then, we'll go. I won't ask you to be someone you're not, and I won't wave temptation under your nose. But before we leave, I want to get my hands on Jack's optical amplifier." He held out his sonic screwdriver and twirled it in his fingers. "I can't help Greyback, not after so much time has passed, but I think I have an idea about how to help old Farmer Willoughby." 

"Help him with the transformation?" asked Sirius. "There's nothing much that can be done, not until they discover the Wolfsbane Potion around the time that I… that I left Azkaban." He said the last in a rush, forcing the words out. He was done stammering in fear when he spoke of that place. 

The Doctor watched him, speculative. "It's very early in the infection stage. Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform infiltrates cell by cell; if we act now, we might be able to eradicate those cells before they get a hold on him. Unlike poor Fen; I don't think there's any chance we could separate those two entities at all now." 

"I don't think Fen wants to be separate at all," said Sirius. "He really thinks it's made his life better. Stronger and better." 

Somewhere in the forest, Fenrir bayed at the fading moon, and the Doctor looked off in that direction. "The real truth – the scary truth that frightened people cannot bear – is that stronger is not always better. There's strengths and there's strengths." 

Sirius thought of the Doctor, standing unafraid while the Dementor hovered above him. He nodded. Then he reached for his wand. "If we're going near Jack, you'll need to be in disguise again." 

The Doctor sighed and slumped his shoulders. "I suppose you're right. But the novelty is rather wearing off." He brightened. "Can you do any other dogs? What about those Old English Sheepdogs?" He gestured at his forehead. "With the floppy hair. All grey and white." 

Sirius thought about the wording, and pulled the spell together in his mind. Before he cast it, he put up his wand. "The last time we tried this, the results were not predictable." 

"Ah but this time I know what to expect. And I'm focused, Sirius, my mind is a keen laser, ready to help guide this spell properly." The Doctor shook himself all over, muttering to himself. "Be the sheepdog. Be the sheepdog." 

" _Hárasteorra!_ " Sirius released the spell and waited for the Doctor's form to stabilise. 

"Did it work? Did it work?" barked the Docter, in melodic tones. 

Sirius looked down at the corgi. "Yes," he said. "Yes, Doctor, it worked wonderfully."


	6. Chapter 6

The Doctor pranced happily through the leaf litter, with his feathery tail held high and proud. "I'm getting the hang of this high physics magical cult of yours, Sirius. I might get myself a wand next." 

The optical amplifier was large and square, clad with polished timber and brass fittings, and had large glass portholes in each of its four facing side. 

"Oh, you're beautiful," said the Doctor, waddling all around it. "Look at you, all calibrated and probably full of mirrors. I smell silver: I'll bet they're using old mirrors to amplify the light. I'd love to get a look inside you." Unfortunately he didn't stand high enough to see inside to the workings of the device, so he propped his forelegs on the side of the thing and barked imperiously for assistance. "Doubt it will be strong enough to make a fence though – not with the light from a yellow star. You'd need something much higher frequency than that. But then this planet would be fried to a crisp, which rather defeats the purpose of it all." 

Sirius was used to tuning out the technical chatter. He turned in a circle. "This stuff looks expensive. Why would Jack just leave all this here? Did Fen get him?" 

The Doctor came to stand beside him, nostrils flaring delicately. "I get a whiff of terror here, but I don't smell blood, so I doubt that your werewolf has been around. Though, to be honest, this nose isn't as good as the first. I wonder if you should turn me into a bloodhound next." 

Sirius looked down at him, imagining what _Chien de Saint-Hubert_ would make of Time Lord physiology. "I'll find him," he said, and shifted into Padfoot. Colours faded, and the landscape came alive with smell and sound instead. He found Jack's trail quickly, and with the Doctor beside him, followed it. Jack's stride, initially long and confident, turned into an anxious jog-trot, and then a panicked bolt. Sirius loped along the forest floor, his hackles up as the mildew-rot smell of the Dementor drifted down from leaves and branches of higher trees. Concern for Jack, as well as the sturdy presence of the Doctor by his side, kept Sirius on the trail until he saw Jack curled up in the hollow of a dead tree. 

"Go back to the amplifier," he said in soft rumbling barks to the Doctor. "I'll look after Jack." 

The Doctor huffed in the beginning of an argument, but Sirius caught him by the scruff, gently picked him up, and turned him in the opposite direction. "Go," he said, and stepped out of his dog form. 

Jack was curled up as small as someone his height and bulk could manage. Sirius walked slowly towards the hollow tree, with his hands out. Dementors affected people in different ways, and sometimes they reacted in anger. 

"Jack?" he said, tentatively. "Can I help you?" 

Jack took a staggering breath, and wriggled sideways to peer at Sirius. "I feel terrible. Why do I feel terrible?" His face was pale, and his eyes red-rimmed. He clutched his gun, both hands gripping it white knuckled. 

Muggles couldn't see Dementors, though they were sensitive to their effects. Sirius wasn't surprised that the Doctor could see them, but poor Jack clearly could not. How confused he must be. He remembered the Doctor's explanation for Dementors. 

He crouched down by the hollow in the tree. "Psychic vampire," he said. "The – my dog, he took care of it." 

Jack pulled himself upright, and curled his arms around his knees, still holding the gun desperately. "Good old Dougal," he said, weakly. 

Sirius sat down with him. "Do you still have that chocolate?"

"Honestly, I think I'd rather a good fuck," said Jack, with a feeble laugh. "It's always been the best therapy for me." He shuffled up closer to Sirius. "Are you up for a pity fuck?" 

Sirius put an arm across his shoulder. "Chocolate first – it's medicinal." 

Jack holstered his gun and rummaged in his pockets for the foil wrapped bar. "Okay, chocolate. And then sex?"

"Maybe later," said Sirius. He unwrapped the bar, when Jack's trembling hands failed to do so. 

The Doctor heard their footsteps approaching. "About time! Come and hold me up so I can see in this thing!" he barked, from behind the amplifier.

"Hey, if Dougal pees on my box, I'll be charging the Ministry of Magic for the damage. And they'd better not pay me in disappearing coins again, either. Fool me twice, shame on me." He strode across to his amplifier and stopped, startled. "That's not Dougal," he said, surprised. "What happened to Dougal? He was a handsome man, that one." 

The Doctor huffed to himself as he circled the amplifier. "Handsome is as handsome does. Tell him I'm very handsome, Sirius." 

"This is Dougal," said Sirius. "He wanted a change." He leaned closer to Jack, and whispered, "He's terribly vain." 

"Oy!" said the Doctor. "If I weren't here for benevolent reasons, Sirius Black, I'd be attached to you at the ankle right now." He trotted over and gave Sirius a stern look, a herding look. Sirius stepped backwards despite himself, and so did Jack. 

"That's disturbingly effective," said Jack. He took Sirius' hand. "Do you mind if I just hold onto this for a little reassurance?" 

"This is not the time for shenanigans!" the Doctor barked crisply. In corgi-form, he sounded disturbingly like Professor McGonagall. "Listen carefully, Sirius, because when you rewire the optical amplifier you're going to have to sound as though you know what you're talking about, and not at all as though electricity puzzles and frightens you." The Doctor advanced on him step by step as he yipped. 

"It does not!" Sirius said, outraged and a little defensive. 

Jack looked between the two of them. "What does not? Oh, man, I wish I spoke corgi; I feel like I'm missing out on a hell of a conversation." 

"CORGI?" The Doctor wheeled on Sirius and advanced, his eyes furious. 

 

In the hospital, an impressively tall-hatted matron absolutely refused to allow Sirius to bring his dog onto the ward. Sirius was actively constructing a way to transfigure the Doctor into a Chihuahua but Jack deftly bamboozled her with polite flattery, as well as with his official credentials, and Sirius slunk past her station with the Doctor scurrying at his ankles. 

Mr Willoughby, thankfully, was deeply asleep. He'd been showing a lot of agitation, according to his file, which had been attributed to the shock and trauma arising from his mutilated face, and the attending doctor had recommended continuing sedation. Sirius doubted that Willoughby gave a damn about his scarred face; he had seemed very much the kind of person who did not judge on appearance. In this case, Sirius knew better than the doctors: the full moon might not have been able to trigger a transformation so soon after the attack, but the disease recognised the presence of moonlight, and responded accordingly. 

Jack had four of the optical amplifiers, apparently enough to completely bathe Mr Willougby in cool silvery light. The Doctor kept at Sirius's feet, softly yipping instructions, which Sirius carried out slowly and carefully. 

Jack watched as he turned the crank on each box to charge the battery. "Where'd a wizard fellow learn to do this kind of electrical work?" he asked, suddenly. 

Sirius twisted two wires together and slipped the rubbery tubing over the join as the Doctor instructed. "Department of Muggle Affairs," he improvised. "We have a specialist in this business. Has a fascination for the stuff." 

"That's what you call us, isn't it? Muggles," Jack said with a wiggle of his eyebrows. "Makes us sound like idiots, if you ask me." 

"I don't think you're an idiot, Jack." Sirius held up a mirrored piece of glass for the Doctor to examine. The Doctor gave it a lick, and sneezed. 

"Good silver content," he said. "Whoever designed this had a good head for improvisation. Not as good as the Koh-i-noor, but certainly strong and clear. Give it a wipe before you clip it on, now." 

Sirius cleaned the mirror on the edge of his velvet jacket, and clipped it into place. "We're ready?" he asked the little dog. 

The Doctor nodded, and trotted to the doorway. "Allons-y," he said. 

The high-coherence optical amplifier switched on with a whine, as the tiny generators inside each box whirred into action. As soon as each had reached a particularly shrill pitch, a bright beam of silvery light shot out of the glass covered porthole, up to a point above Mr Willoughby's bed where Sirius and Jack had suspended a parabolic mirror. The curved mirror caught the light and concentrated it more, then reflected it straight down onto Willoughby's body. 

Willougby gave a gasp, and his arms flung out, as bluish purple light limned his body. He lifted slowly up off the bed, drifting upwards until he was suspended a foot above the mattress. Under the bandages, a peaceful expression crept across his sleeping face. Nothing sudden happened to indicate the infection had been vanquished; instead, the purple light flickered and danced across his body gently, and then slowly faded. Mr Willoughby's body settled quietly down upon the sheets, and his head lolled to the side as he breathed slowly. 

Sirius reached out to tuck his arms under the covers. "Do you think it's over?" 

"Best chance we can give him," said the Doctor. "He might have some remnant behavioural issues, but hopefully they'll be able to write those off as eccentricities." He shook himself all over. "Well, I'm off outside," he said. "There were some very interesting lamp posts at the front door which I'd quite like to investigate further." He poked his snout into the corridor, saw nobody to stop him, and trotted busily for the glass double doors to the outside. 

"Leave me with all the tidying up," said Sirius. 

Jack reached up to untie the mirror above Willoughby's bed. "Don't worry, I won't leave you in the lurch."

Jack had a very snazzy motor, a sleek green Daimler with barely enough room for the amplifiers and for himself. Sirius helped him stack the boxes on the luggage racks and tie them down. The Doctor had by now wandered all the way down the gravel path to the big wrought iron gates, where he alternately sniffed at the gateposts, or furtively dug in the garden beds.

"Still down for that pity fuck?" asked Jack. There was something pointed in his expression, something guarded and unhappy. 

Sirius took his hand and shook it, holding it for longer than he had to. "You make it sound so enticing," he said. "Aren't you pleased for Willoughby?" 

Jack nodded. His fingers tightened around Sirius'. "You? You pleased with how this all worked out?" 

"What's the matter?" asked Sirius. "You seem angry." 

"You can stop pretending," Jack said. "You could say you're pleased with the work I'm doing or, hey, maybe apologise for what happened on Satellite Five." 

Sirius stared at him, perplexed. "I don't have a clue what you're talking about," he said, finally. 

"Stop it!" said Jack. "Is this something that you do in this regeneration? You bluff people to death? I know who you are." 

"Who do you think I am?" asked Sirius, with a horrible suspicion. 

Jack flipped a coin at him, and Sirius caught it mid-air. It was the hexagonal coin from Altair VII. Sirius turned it over and over, wondering what to say. 

"It's a fine casino," said Jack, bitterly. "I bet you had a fantastic time. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to World War One and influenza. It's going to be a doozy of a decade." 

Sirius reached out and took Jack's hand, pressed it against his chest, first over his heart, then moving to the other side. 

Jack looked bewildered and betrayed at the lack of a double heartbeat. 

"I'm not him," said Sirius. "I've met him, and I've even travelled with him. But I'm not him, I'm sorry." 

"Is he here now?" said Jack. 

Sirius told himself it wasn't a lie, not if the Doctor wasn't right here in front of them now. "No, he's not here."

Jack's expression was calculating now. "Do I get to meet him again? Has he said anything about me?" Meanwhile, his hand was still against Sirius' chest. He spread his fingers out wide, and stroked Sirius with his fingertips. 

Sirius didn't step away. "He told me that he had let down a friend – quite substantially, was how he put it – and I know that he doesn't like to leave his debts unpaid. I really do think that you'll meet him again." 

"Well," said Jack, with only a touch of forced cheer. "Whatever can we do to fill the time until that happens?" 

Sirius smiled, and ignored the corgi galloping towards them over the wide lawns of the hospital. "I'm sure, with time and privacy, we can both find something to occupy us."

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes: 
> 
> A teenage character is implied to be the victim of child abuse by a member of his community. The abuse is over now. There are no descriptions of the abuse. 
> 
> The violence in this fic is Harry Potter levels of gore during a werewolf attack. One person survives the attack, one person is killed.


End file.
